One man falls into a vat of slurry on a Norfolk farm. Two of his colleagues try to save him. All three are overcome by fumes and die. In Huddersfield, a man climbs into a stainless steel mixing vessel and falls unconscious. Firefighters rescue the father-of-two, but he later dies. In Suffolk, a welder dismantling a ballast tank is overcome by fumes. His colleague tries to rescue him but he too is overcome. Neither has received specialist training on working in confined spaces. Both men die.

All these are examples of deaths in confined spaces. Figures for the UK are hard to locate: the Institution of Electrical Engineering (now part of the Institution of Engineering and Technology) states that around 15 people are killed in confined spaces each year, but it is not possible to confirm this using official figures. Several US sources say 60% of confined space deaths involve people trying to rescue those already trapped or injured. This risk is reflected in the UK examples above.

Safe working in confined spaces is governed by the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997. For the full text of the Regulations, go to the "legislation" section of the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk (Statutory Instrument no.1713 of 1997). The Regulations define a confined space as "any place, including any chamber, tank, vat, silo, pit, trench, pipe, sewer, flue, well or other similar space in which, by virtue of its enclosed nature, there arises a reasonably foreseeable specified risk" (see the box below for an explanation of specified risks). The Regulations do not cover ships, mines or diving, though much of the advice available on the topic refers to these locations as well.

Risk control

On the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) home page at www.hse.gov.uk "confined spaces" appears in the pull-down menu of health and safety topics. Unlike many other topics that take up several pages, confined spaces is dealt with in a single page - though with links to some .pdf documents, including the general guidance in Safe Working in Confined Spaces (INDG 258, reprinted 2005) as well as specific guidance for work on farms and for working safely with solvents.

The ever-useful website of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety at www.ccohs.ca has a detailed section under "OSH Answers" explaining what confined spaces are, the hazards involved and the precautions to take. Select  "health & safety programs" to find "confined space - introduction" and "confined space - program".

Safety in confined spaces does not seem to be a priority for the trade unions. The topic is not listed on either the main TUC site or on its WorkSafe site. The only link from the TUC site points to an American blogger's website (http://spewingforth.blogspot.com), which has some interesting opinions on general health and safety matters but not much useful information. Similarly, there is no information on the websites of the main construction or engineering unions.

The European Industrial Gases Association has some useful publications. Go to www.eiga.be and select "campaign against asphyxiation" from the campaigns list and then choose "Dangers of Asphyxiation leaflet.pdf" for a useful summary of asphyxiation hazards, or "Oxygen_deficiency.pdf" for a more detailed, brightly illustrated explanation of how asphyxiation can affect workers in confined spaces. "Doc 44 00 E.pdf" describes the hazards of inert gases and gives some advice on rescue and first aid, while "Doc 40 00 E.pdf" covers permit-to-work systems.

Equipment and training provider BOC Industrial (www.bocindustrial.co.uk) covers the problems of oxygen enrichment and deficiency. Look for "gases risks" in the "safety" menu and see "risks of oxygen" and "risks of inert gases". These describe some of the causes of oxygen enrichment and deficiency, the possible consequences and how to avoid the associated hazards. The website also offers advice on air testing (using BOC products).

The Internation Association of Classification Societies (IACS) website at www.iacs.org.uk contains a useful .pdf document titled "Confined Space Safe Practice". Click on "guidelines and recommendations" for a list of reports, ordered by recommendation number; you need Recommendation 72. Though the website navigation is poor, the .pdf document is worth a read for its detailed description of how to identify and evaluate confined spaces hazards. It lacks a contents page but is well illustrated and includes handy checklists. IACS's target audience is the maritime industry, which the 1997 Regulations do not cover, but much of this information is useful more generally.

What can go wrong?

If you are running hazard identification sessions and want to prompt people to think about possible hazards by considering past accidents, the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) website is very useful. From www.cdc.gov/niosh choose the "confined spaces (injury) topic page" in the A-Z index and select "fatality investigation reports". This links to investigation case reports from over 70 incidents between 1983 and 2004, in which 132 people died. These reports include cases of workers engulfed by sawdust, asphyxiated, intoxicated by carbon monoxide and drowned in sewage. The reports are valuable for the range of circumstances they cover and the detail they provide.  Another useful US site is www.occupationalhazards.com where, if you search the articles for "confined space" you will find several more accounts of incidents and prosecutions.

Details of confined spaces accidents in the UK are more difficult to find. On the HSE prosecutions database at www.hse-databases.co.uk/prosecutions "confined spaces" is not defined as one of the location types, so one way to find relevant incidents is to carry out an "advanced" search of "breaches" using the relevant set of regulations. But not all confined space incidents are dealt with as breaches of the Confined Spaces Regulations (many have been dealt with under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974) so you should also look for "confined space" in the "case summary" field.

You can search enforcement notices in the same way at www.hse-databases.co.uk/notices. The information in these HSE databases is not as detailed as the NIOSH reports, but it is a good starting point. More details of some of the incidents can be found on the BBC news site at http://news.bbc.co.uk using the company names from the HSE databases (searching for "confined space" on BBC news will provide too many irrelevant finds). The site www.safetynews.co.uk also carries descriptions of a small number of confined spaces accidents, ordered by date.  

Learning more

Training is mentioned 10 times in 11 pages of the guidance document Safe Working in Confined Spaces (INDG 258). But advice on "adequacy" of training or who is competent to provide training on working in confined spaces is more difficult to find.

Posts on the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health website at www.iosh.org.uk suggest you should ensure training covers breathing apparatus, gas detection and emergency procedures. Half-day and one-day courses don't often cover emergency procedures, so you probably need a two-day-plus course.

If you are going to run your own training, searching for "confined space training video DVD" will reveal a host of videos on the subject. Of these, the two Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents titles at www.rospa.com/construction may be worth a preview. Further suggestions for videos and computer-based training are available at www.web-safety.com/newshop under "confined spaces". The CIBT product on confined spaces reviewed in this magazine in October 2002 is no longer available.

Specified risks

The Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 refer to the need to safeguard people against  "specified risks".

These include:

• serious injury to any person at work arising from a fire or explosion
• the loss of consciousness of any person at work arising from an increase in body temperature
• the loss of consciousness or asphyxiation of any person at work arising from gas, fume, vapour or the lack of oxygen
• the drowning of any person at work arising from an increase in the level of a liquid
• the asphyxiation of any person at work arising from a free flowing solid or the inability to reach a respirable environment due to entrapment by a free-flowing solid.